'Memoirs of Hadrian': A virtuoso Lluís Homar on an unnecessary television set

The historical novel or false biography of the Roman emperor Hadrian is the best-known and most widely read book by the Belgian writer Marguerite Yourcenar. The novel was adapted for the stage by the Italian director Maurizio Scaparro in 1989, and a few years later it was seen in Julio Cortázar's Spanish version, also directed by Scaparro, at the Teatre Grec in Barcelona. Now the show returns to the stage with a dramaturgy by Brenda Escobedo and the fantastic starring role of Lluís Homar, for whom the part is a perfect fit. The reflections of Hadrian/Yourcenar on politics, wars, beauty, and death compose a human fresco that the virtuoso Lluís Homar conveys, combining delicacy with depth, confidence with tender melancholy. 

It is thanks to his stage presence, his clarity of diction, and his ability to imbue words with meaning that the performance resonates powerfully, despite Beatriz Jaén's staging, which, in the name of contemporaneity, places the monologue in a television studio. Hadrian appears surrounded by a silent group of makeup artists, costume designers, stylists, sound technicians, and camera operators who constantly move with actions that contribute nothing to the narrative and hinder its continuity. Whether because the director lacks sufficient faith in the word or out of a need to underline her contribution, this visual play of movements and projected images becomes unnecessary as well as distracting. Much ado about the intimate monologue of a human being awaiting death.

The issue becomes even more apparent when the story addresses the emperor's romantic relationship with his young lover Antinous and his tragic fate. The group disappears. The tension focuses, and the space becomes a metaphor for the vibrant relationship between the sentiment expressed in words and that expressed through the movement of a dancer (Álvar Nahuel) who embodies the entire performance.